


Hush

by Scraplette



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scraplette/pseuds/Scraplette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to the efforts of Ratchet, First Aid and Amublon, Rung's life is saved but now the hard part begins. The road to recovery can be long and arduous one but having friends at hand can make it a little easier.</p>
<p>It helps if one of those friends doesn't know when to shut up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hush

**Author's Note:**

> I recently re-read 'Signal to Noise' and I loved the description of Rung's recovery and Swerve's part in it. I'm might betaking a few liberties(it's not clear if Rung touched his own lips or Swerve's) but I love the image that formed in my mind when reading the text.
> 
> Any criticism or feedback would be welcome especially in regards to grammar and punctuation, as I'm trying to improve both, advice would be greatly appreciated!

It was the beginning of another work cycle and Skids, having no formal job position and therefore a a lot of free time, was heading towards the medibay to visit Rung. This had pretty much been his morning routine after the Fort Max incident, visiting, talking and hoping for a change in the little therapists condition. 

The medibay doors opened with a soft hiss and Skids stepped through, instantly he spotted Ratchet and First Aid at their usual work station. The Theoretician didn't even need to look to know that Swerve was already there, his ears told him enough.

 

“Morning Ratchet,” he said, jovially, raising his hand in greeting.

“...”

Well that was rude. The old medic wasn't exactly famous for his manners but even then he could usually muster up the effort and grumble out a response.

He shrugged it off as Ratchet being more Ratchety than normal and offered the same greeting to First Aid, who was standing beside Ratchet and seemed to be just as engrossed in his work as the older medic.

“...”

Okay, now this had gone beyond a simple lack of manners or higher than normal Ratchetyness. First Aid just wasn't the sort to ignore a mech(in pain or otherwise) at least not without a good reason. A medic's programming wouldn't permit them to ignore another mech in need, but it was amazing just how far they could push that programming just to get back at someone.

There had been the infamous Oppsie incident. Sunstreaker, having lost an arm in an arrow related incident, had been brought to the medibay and it was up to Amublon (as the only available medic) to reattach the limb. Now, Ambulon would have quite happily done so if he hadn't heard one too many snide remarks, mostly said by good ole Sunny, about his flaking paint job. What followed was nearly an hour of Ambulon 'accidentally' fumbling his laser scalpel.

“Sorry, hand slipped. That must have stung.”

“Well gosh, aren't I clumsy!”

“Oppsie! Hands are glitching something awful today!”

Long story short don't mess with the medics, Ex-Decepticon or otherwise. Even so, First Aid was rather forgiving when it came to the usual Lost Light antics and Skids was fairly certain he hadn't done anything(recently) to upset the good natured mech.

Right, time for Skids to resort to direct action, his favourite sort of action as it usually saved a lot of time in the long run. He reached forward and tapped Ratchet on the shoulder. “Hey, you two oka-”

Ratchet's reaction was instant. He whipped round, fumbling his welder, and snarled in Skids's face.

Skids, being the battle ready warrior that he was, reacted appropriately. “AH!” he screamed back, eyes locked on the widely flailing welder.

“Wha?” First Aid looked up from his work, confused but a whole lot calmer than the other two bots currently screaming/snarling at each other.

“Slaggit!” Ratchet growled, throwing down his tool. “Warn someone next time you fancy man-handling them!”

Skids blinked. “I'm sorry?” he wasn't really sure what he was apologising for, he'd made his presence pretty clear...

Ratchet shuttered his eyes whilst rubbing at his ears. “Ugh,” he groused, lowering his hands. “No no, don't be kid. It's not your fault. First Aid and I had out audials turned right down.”

“Um... Why would you do that?” Skids asked, confused and more than a little shocked. Wasn't that technically known as shirking ones duty?

First Aid raised a single finger and pointed to the corner of the medibay where Swerve was still wittering on to a comatose Rung.

“Ah,” Skids didn't need to be a theoretician to connect the dots on that one.

Ratchet sighed deeply. Space, in all its infinite splendour could only dream of being as deep as this particular sigh. “He's been here nearly six days.”

“One hundred and forty-seven hours, twenty-two minutes to be exact,” First Aid chipped in with more enthusiasm than he should have given the topic.

Ratchet shot First Aid one of his patented Ratchet Looks, it was the sign to shut up now before wrenches started flying. “It was the only way to get any blasted peace!” he added.

The blue bot gawked at Swerve, the second reason for Skids's near daily visits, now more than ever the mouthy bartender needed emotional support. Feelings of pity and admiration welled up in his spark for the mini-bot. He had no doubt that Swerve felt terrible over what he did to Rung, but to go to such lengths for someone he barely knew? Amazing!

Skids was a super learner and that meant he had a bloody good memory, near eidetic at times, and in that instant he recalled almost every harsh word ever muttered, snarled, hissed or yelled at Swerve during the few short weeks Skids had been aboard the Lost Light. His eyes narrowed, dangerously, and he turned to scowl at the two medics, both of which had been looking at him with obvious concern.

“If he was so annoying why didn't you ask him to leave?” Skids asked, dryly. He was amazed at how calm he was being despite his growing anger on his small friends behalf.

First Aid and Ratchet exchanged glances and, as if having reached the same conclusion, shrugged. “Didn't have the spark to do it,” Ratchet mumbled, 

Skids's harsh expression fell instantly, hard to stay mad after hearing that... He raised an arm and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little self-conscious all of a sudden. “So...” he began, hoping to shift the focus to something less awkward, like the original reason for his visit. “How's Eyebrows? Any change?” he mumbled, looking to the small orange bot in question.

The way Ratchet's shoulders tensed said it all. No change. Please stop asking.

Firs Aid, failing to pick up on the mood or not caring, snagged a spare data-pad from the nearby workstation. “Nothing so far,” he said, pulling up Rung's most recent readout. “He's definitely aware of his surroundings. He's... just not reacting to any of it.”

Same old, same old then.

Skid's had kinda hopped that, once Rung woke up, things would improve. Swerve would apologise, Rung would forgive him and life would continue on its merry way. Life, however, just loved to keep things interesting for the Lost Light crew.

Skids, Swerve and Whirl had been present when Rung was finally brought back online, but instead of a smile and some soothing words, Rung had only a blank state to offer. It had been unsettling to see such a look on the usually so expressive face. Maybe Whirl was onto something with his supernatural eyebrow theory... 

Anyway, after Skids had calmed a panicking Swerve(“Oh Primus, I broke his face!”) and Ratchet had talked down an upset(but wouldn't never admit it) Whirl. First Aid explained that this sort of behaviour wasn't unusual for patients recovering from massive head trauma. If you were to show Rung an object and a picture of that same object he wouldn't be able to differentiate between the two. In fact, Rung wouldn't do much of anything because he'd probably be wondering why the wall was making noises at him. The Psychiatrist was essentially trapped in his own body, trying to make sense of a world his mind could no longer comprehend. It had taken several weeks of repetition, patience and a heck of a lot of bad doodles before Ratchet announced that Rung's neural net was starting to stabilise. 

However, full recovery was still a long way of. Rung's brain had been rebuilt from scratch. New pathways had to be formed, old ones re-established and reinforced. There was a lot(as Ratchet had put it) white noise to work through.

Skids simply smiled, nodded and made his way to sit beside Swerve. “Morning,” he said, pulling up his usual seat. He'd sat in this chair so often over the weeks he was thinking about getting his named engraved on it. Make it nice and official like.

Swerve flapped his hands at Skids, shushing him. “Atatatatat! Shut it! I was just getting to the best bit. Sorry Rung. Skids just showed up. He says hey.”

“Hey, Eyebrows,”

“See! It's like I'm psychic or something. Anyway, back to the amazing tale of how Blurr won the Ibex cup for the fifth time and how I was totally there to see it! I was sitting in the fifth roll, seat fifty-five, to commemorate Blurr's fifth win which was going to happen, without a doubt. You have no idea how hard it was to get that seat. I had to do this guy a favour so I could do this other guy a favour for that guy-”

Skids leant back in his chair and settled down for the story. Normally he would join in on the banter, hoping to elicit a response from their eye-browed friend, but it looked as if Swerve had it covered. He didn't get why everyone found Swerve so annoying... Okay, that was a lie. He understood, he just didn't care. It took a lot to hold Skids's attention and Swerve's perfect inane chatter and its sheer volume was more than enough to keep Skids engaged. The second the theoretician thought he was settling into the general flow of the conversation Swerve would suddenly change topics(sometimes twice in one sentence which he was sure was grammatically impossible) and Skids would be drawn right back in.

It wasn't that Skids found his friends boring, It was just how his brain was wired. Given enough time he could master any skill in a matter of months(weeks if he really found it interesting) his mind processed information so quickly and efficiently, so he was always looking for different ways to keep it occupied. Conversation was one such way and while the crew of the Lost Light could keep him entertained with its many bots of various backgrounds, skills and professions Swerve was the only bot capable of leaving Skids trailing in his conversational dust.

As Swerve continued to weave his epic tale of favours, Skids closed his eyes and let himself be swept up in the story that was, bit by bit, taking shape. Each rapid fire sentence slowly built up a coherent picture in Skids's mind. He could see the stadium, as it was before it was bombed into oblivion, the heaving crowd cheering as their heroes flew past the finish line one after another. 

It took him a second to notice but Swerve's commentary was slowing down, in fact, by the time he opened his eyes the chatter had ground to a halt and it was plain to see why. Rung, still lying on the medical slab, was slowly raising his hand. They both froze, afraid that any movement or sound would send Rung back into the cage of his own mind, and watched that hand and its slow, languid movements, shaking from the obvious effort it was taking to perform this usually simple gesture. 

Rung reached forward, towards Swerve, extended his index finger and then placed it delicately against the Bartenders lips.

Message received and understood.


End file.
